mud n.
1. a fool.
![]() | Hell Upon Earth 5: Mud, a Fool, or thick skull Fellow. | |
![]() | Memoirs (1714) 13: Mud, a Fool, or Thick-scul Fellow. | |
![]() | Provoked Husband II i: You! you think I’m too forward! sure! Brother Mud! your Head’s too heavy to think of anything but your Belly. | |
![]() | New General Eng. Dict. (5th edn). | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Mud, a Fool or thick skulled fellow. | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn). | |
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | A Dict. of the Turf, The Ring, The Chase, etc. 122: Mud — a stupid twaddling fellow. | |
![]() | Musa Pedestris (1896) 120: There’s a nook in the boozing-ken, Where many a mud I fog. | ‘The Thieves’s Chaunt’ in Farmer|
![]() | Vocabulum. | |
![]() | Sl. Dict. (1890). |
2. as a thick liquid.
(a) (orig. US, also Mississippi mud) thick, strong coffee.
![]() | Love Afloat 209: The bullet-headed, dark-woolled youth of African descent who was his body-servant, appeared [...] bearing a cup of ‘Navy mud,’ alias coffee. | |
[ | ![]() | Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories 40: ‘What’s that mud?’ he demanded. ‘Coffee,’ said Sam politely]. |
![]() | Commercial (Union City, TN) 22 May 5/1: The woman ordered a cup of coffee with cream, two lumps of sugar [...] The man wanted a cup of coffee without cream [...] the waiter ordered, ‘Cup of mud, two chunks of ballast, milk the Jersey [...] Draw another in the dark’. | |
![]() | S.F. Call 5 Mar. 8/2: Bill’s coffee — notwithstanding he insists on calling it mud — is excellent. | |
![]() | Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 34: I received punk (bread) and a cup of mud (black coffee). | |
![]() | Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: Coffee is hot-stuff, mud or embalming-fluid. | |
![]() | Waukesha (WI) Freeman 24 Jan. 3?/3: ‘Mississippi mud,’ [...] – coffee. | |
![]() | Hash House Lingo 7: An order for a cup of coffee may be given by [...] draw some mud. | |
![]() | They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 135: ‘Got another cuppa mud, Joe?’ ‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘Chuck us yer empty.’. | |
![]() | CB Slanguage 29: Cup of Mud: coffee. | |
![]() | National Lampoon Sept. 62: All night choke-and-pukes, where you eyeball pretty waitresses over bottomless cups of thirty-weight mud [HDAS]. | |
![]() | Dolores Claiborne 219: I poured myself a fresh slug of mud and went out on the porch to drink it. | |
![]() | Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Mud: Coffee. |
(b) (UK Und.) pea soup.
![]() | Soul Market 300: ‘Two ’aporths o’mud,’ was the answer [...] The irate soup-vendor [...] proceeded to a large can behind the counter and ladled into two great earthenware basins two semi-fluid portions of some queer-looking substance. |
3. in drug senses [the colour (and consistency); note abbr. foreign mud, trans. of Chinese name for opium].
(a) unprocessed opium.
![]() | God’s Man 355: I was showing the sucker here what would happen if any [...] guy got it into his head to try an’ stop us from landing our black mud. | |
![]() | Black Mask Aug. III 54: Neatly piled on it was an opium smoking outfit, together with a can of ‘Mud’. | |
![]() | Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 132: Mud. – Opium, from the gummy, muddy appearance of the drug in its crude state, and before being prepared for smoking. | |
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
![]() | Narcotics Lingo and Lore. | |
![]() | World’s Toughest Prison 809: mud – Opium. | |
![]() | Honourable Schoolboy 422: Collect a little mud maybe, take him a few guns, rice, gold. |
(b) opium, esp. second-rate.
![]() | Black Candle 113: Opium ready for smoking is usually about the consistency of black molasses, or of tar. Pedlars call it ‘mud’. | |
![]() | (ref. to 1918) Over the Wall 21: I saw and became familiar with [...] morphine users, tars or muds – smokers of opium. | |
![]() | letter 20 Dec. in Harris (1993) 98: I take a bang or some mud in coffee now and then. | |
![]() | ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2. | |
![]() | Underground Dict. (1972). | |
![]() | (con. 1930s) Addicts Who Survived 87: Now you’ve got your pipe and bowl; you take your yen-hok and dip down into the mud. | |
![]() | ONDCP Street Terms 15: Mud — Heroin; opium. |
(c) the residue of heroin or morphine processing.
![]() | Bk of Jargon 338: mud: Morphine. |
(d) heroin.
![]() | Prison Sl. 70: Mud Mexican heroin. […] This heroin is brown in color and forms a brown liquid when mixed with water and cooked. | |
![]() | ONDCP Street Terms 15: Mud — Heroin; opium. |
4. excrement.
[ | ![]() | ‘The Lass with the Velvet A-se’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 215: Pray take Example all, / And learn for the future to use brown paper / So heres a health to every Lass / That mudifies her A-se]. |
![]() | Queens’ Vernacular 139: mud [...] 2. feces within the intestinal track. | |
![]() | Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: mud n. Excrement. |
5. (US) problems.
![]() | Pound for Pound 62: Chicky had enough mud to haul as it was. |
6. (US) derog. term for a black person.
![]() | Generation Kill ep. 1 [TV script] Wiggas be the worst. Race traitors, ’cegenatin’ with the muds. | ‘Get Some’
In compounds
(US campus) diarrhoea.
![]() | Campus Sl. Apr. |
(US prison) a forced confrontation to see how brave a new inmate may be.
![]() | Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Mud Check: Confronting a convict to see if he or she will stand up for one’s self. | |
![]() | mydogharriet.blogspot.com 2 Mar. 🌐 That knick-knack needs to get mud checked for getting on your leg and then cappin’ it with no explanation. |
(N.Z.) an unattractive person.
![]() | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
(US black) an attractive woman.
![]() | Central Sl. |
(US) a derog. term for a black person.
![]() | Prison Sl. 55: Mud Flap A black person. |
1. (US) a derog. term for a black woman.
![]() | Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 7 Jan. 34/1: [cartoon caption] I’ll show you what brains can do, you bone-headed mud hens! | |
![]() | Beating Back in Hamilton (1952) 99: Jar loose, mud hen! |
2. (US) slightly derog. generic for a person.
![]() | King Kong 127: ‘Some of you mudhens take Miss Ann from the mate before he falls in his tracks’. |
3. (US prison) a lazy person.
![]() | Bounty of Texas (1990) 211: pull- do (poule d’eau, or mudhen), n. – someone who is lazy. | ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy
an act of defecation.
![]() | Grits 316: Oo. Big one ther. Birruver ring-stinger, that . . . a red-wine dump, poo, mud-out, crap, shite. |
(US) a homosexual man.
![]() | Prison Sl. 60: Mud Packer A person who takes the dominant role in a homosexual relationship. |
the feet.
![]() | Le Slang. |
thick boots, gumboots.
![]() | Reading Mercury 6 Apr. 4/5: A pair of cloth Mud Pipes, with unbleached pearl buttons [...] a canary and a bull. | |
![]() | Modern Flash Dict. | |
![]() | Courier (Hobart, Tas.) 27 Oct. 3/1: [advert, from UK source] Mud-pipes, kneecaps, and Trotter-cases equally cheap. | |
![]() | Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open. | |
![]() | advert in Vulgar Tongue (1857) 45: Mud Pipes, Knee Caps, and Trotter Cases, built very low. |
(US campus) an ugly woman.
![]() | Sl. and Sociability 70: Dog is often the second member of a compound or phrase: [...] As with many slang words for animals, dog and its spinoffs often have sexual implications. A bowser, bow-wow, or mud puppy is an ‘ugly female’. |
a street sweeper.
![]() | (ref. to 1870) in Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
1. in pl., large, cheap shoes.
![]() | US Army and Navy Journal I 180/2: Expensive shoes [...] are often thrown away unused, for the despised Government ‘mudscows.’ These ‘mudscows’ or ‘gunboats’ [...] are low-cut, stitched, very light, and very cheap [...]. The sole is very broad, and the heels broad and low [DA]. | |
![]() | DN III:v 413: mudscows, n. Large shoes. | in ‘Word-List From Aroostook’ in
2. in pl., feet.
![]() | (con. c.1820) | In Forecastle 386: Tread water lustily with those mud scows (pointing to his feet) [HDAS].
(US black) a white man or woman who prefers black partners.
![]() | Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 mud shark Definition: a white girl who only dates black men Example: You can give up on that, she’s a mud shark. | |
![]() | Destination: Morgue! (2004) 228: She’s a nympho. She pulls trains for spooks. She’s a real mud shark. | ‘Hollywood Fuck Pad’ in|
![]() | Widespread Panic 38: ‘Otto Preminger?’ ‘Mud shark. Currently enthralled with a sepia seductress’. |
1. (UK society) an agricultural show or any similar outdoor event.
![]() | Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
2. (US) an old-fashioned circus; thus mud-showman, one who runs or works at such a circus.
![]() | AS I:5 282: Mud show — The old time wagon show. Sometimes called a ‘mud op’ry’. | ‘A Circus List’ in|
![]() | Barker 150: Mud showman – A carnival man. | |
![]() | Everybody’s Oct. 🌐 Sweeney used to be a press-agent for a small mud-show. | ‘West Goes South’ in
1. the penis.
![]() | ‘Jizz at the work place’ Dreamsonweb.net 5 Dec. 🌐 [He] wipped out his 13 inch limp alabama mud snake and began to crank his shaft. then he spit a wad all over my boss. |
2. a turd.
![]() | 🌐 I ran into the bathroom and laid the biggest mudsnake in my life. It didn’t flush down properly; so I left it sitting there and got back to Tonya. | ‘feeling bad for u’ posting 12 May at TonyaHarding.com
an agricultural student.
![]() | N&Q Ser. 2 II 198: A young friend of mine... a mud-student [F&H]. | |
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | Sl. Dict. |
(US) a contemptible person.
![]() | Tom Sawyer, Detective xi 527: A mud-turtle of a back-settlement lawyer [DA]. | |
![]() | Bone of Contention (1995) 973: If I had dat nule bone heah, Ahd teach a few mo’ uh yuh mud-turtles something. | |
![]() | Short Stories (1937) 50: Sa-ay, don’t be a mud turtle. | ‘Looking ’Em Over’ in
In phrases
(US) from a man’s point of view, to have sexual intercourse.
![]() | Sweetwater Gunslinger 201 (1990) 63: ‘You going to get your ashes hauled tonight?’ [...] ‘What does that mean?’ ‘Same as getting some mud for your turtle, honey.’. | |
![]() | 🌐 I got in trouble because some intern in my employ had disappeared and everyone thought we were romantically involved but I said no she was just a good friend but then they found out that I’d been using her to get mud for my turtle, so to speak. | ‘Disorderly Condit’ in ‘My Worst Nightmare’ on Bill Klein On-Line
(US gay) to have anal intercourse.
![]() | Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 anal intercourse: [...] Syn: get some mud for the duck. |
to smoke opium.
![]() | Traffic In Narcotics 310: hit the mud. To use opium as a drug in any way. |
1. (US black) to keep one’s own counsel, to keep quiet.
![]() | On the Yard (2002) 31: ‘So you couldn’t hold your mud?’ Nunn shrugged. | |
![]() | Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 26: When one knows what’s happening he can operate in many scenes, providing that he can ‘hold his mud’ (keep cool and out of trouble). | ‘Time and cool people’ in Kochman|
![]() | Homeboy 151: Do your own time, hold your own mud. | |
![]() | Cold Case (2002) 82: He was somewhat successful at not giving information to people. He held his mud. | |
![]() | I, Fatty 240: When I asked, Gavin held his mud. | |
![]() | OG Dad 25: Again, I managed to hold my mud, But back in the car [...] I had to bring it [i.e. a worrying topic] up. |
2. (US drugs) to be courageous.
![]() | ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2. |
3. (US) to control one’s bowel movements.
![]() | Happy Mutant Baby Pills 15: Americans like to think of themselves as mud-holders. You don’t see the Greatest Generation diapering up. |
(gay) to have anal intercourse.
![]() | Queens’ Vernacular. | |
![]() | Central Sl. 40: packin’ the mud Anal intercourse. | |
![]() | Prison Sl. 63: Packin’ Mud An expression for anal intercourse. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US) derog. term for an African-American.
![]() | Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘Fuck you, mud boy,’ Brecker growled. |
see mud-head n. (2)
(drugs) homegrown marijuana.
![]() | Wordplay 🌐 This is a list of phrases made of pairs of words that rhyme [...] mud bud (homegrown marijuana). | ‘Itty Bitty: Nonsense Rhymes’
1. a stupid or contemptible person.
![]() | ‘Mark Twain’ Letters I 323: A scheming, groveling mud-cat of a lawyer. | |
![]() | Runyon on Broadway (1954) 521: A fink being a character who is lower than a mudcat’s vest pocket. | ‘Cemetery Bait’ in
2. a Mississippian [Mississippi is known as the Mudcat State].
![]() | Americanisms 660: Mississippi is occasionally spoken of humorously as the Mudcat State, the inhabitants being quite generally known as Mud-cats, a name given to the large catfish abounding in the swamps and the mud of the rivers . | |
![]() | Chicago Daily News 16 Aug. 10/7: While we are laying down surrender terms for the Japanese, how about a Declaration on Senator ‘Dear Dago’ Bilbo, the Mississippi mudcat? [DA]. |
1. (Aus.) milit. the infantry.
![]() | Aus. Sl. Dict. 51: Mud Crushers, the name given by the cavalry to the infantry. |
2. (US black) an extreme form of bully whose aim is to crush everyone into the ground.
![]() | Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
(mid-19C) toadying, sycophancy.
![]() | Sportsman (London) 8 July 2/1: Notes on News [...] It Is with great pleasure that take our part in the general mud-eating in honour of his Royal Highness Prince Arthur. |
(UK Und.) a foot.
![]() | Swell’s Night Guide 61: Twig his gams; stage his mud fakers – there’s a pair of crab spoilers – talk of a foot, why it’s fourteen inches. |
(Aus.) very fat.
![]() | Ginger Murdoch 18: I got this thing [...] orf a Pong in Cunnamulla, mud-fat he was (the horse) — you know the way they feed ’em. | |
![]() | Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
see mullet n.2
1. (US black) noticeably large feet.
![]() | Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
2. (Aus.) large ears.
![]() | More Aus. Nicknames 71: Mud Flaps Has protruding ears. |
3. the female breasts.
![]() | Mad mag. Feb. 50: That Kirstie Alley, she’s got some nice mud flaps! |
see separate entries.
see grappler n. (1)
(N.Z.) a bald head; occas. ext. as shiny on top, all shit beneath.
![]() | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 138: mudguard Bald head, sometimes with the accompanying phrase shiny on top, all shit beneath. |
(N.Z.) a fat person.
![]() | Aussie Eng. (1966) 60: You will become very fat, and will earn for yourself the title of ‘mud-guts’. | |
![]() | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
see separate entries.
1. street mud and slush.
![]() | DSUE (1984) 762: ca. 1870–1914. |
2. beer.
![]() | Strictly Business (1915) 204: He held in his hand the key to a paradise of the mud-honey that he craved. [Ibid.] ‘Past One at Rooney’s’ 260: This mud honey was clarified sweetness to his taste. | ‘Compliments of the Season’ in
see separate entry.
see mud hook n. (2)
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
(US black) shoes.
![]() | (con. 1930s–50s) Night People 118: Mudlocks. Shoes. |
see mud hook n. (2)
(UK Und.) a crossing sweeper.
![]() | Swell’s Night Guide 73: I piped a donna vot vas dossing next pad from us vith lucifer cove and the mud-penciller. |
a heavy boot, suitable for cross-country walking.
![]() | Satirist (London) 22 May 56/3: Looking at the old pair of mudplungers. | |
![]() | Illus. Times 11 Jan. 11/2: ‘My mark is mud-plungers [...] look here, Jerry!’ So saying the speaker shot forward one of his legs, which Jerry glanced at. |
(UK tramp) walking through muddy streets and lanes in the hope of securing hand-outs; thus mud-plunger, one who does this.
![]() | in Dly Teleg. 16 Feb. 3/2: ‘Mud-plungers’ – beggars whose harvest-time is when they can wade in the middle of the road and in pouring rain, with an agonising display of saturated rags and mire-sodden naked feet. | |
![]() | Bradford Obs. 4 Nov. 4/1: That rascal and his wife are street singers and cadgers of the sort known as mud-plungers. Fine weather don’t suit ’em. | |
![]() | Low-Life Deeps 270: That rascal and his wife are street singers and cadgers of the sort known as ‘mud-plungers.’ Fine weather don’t suit ’em; they can’t come out strong enough. | |
![]() | Daily Tel. 8 Feb. 3, col. 1: It doesn’t matter if it’s house to house work or chanting, or mud-plunging, it’s cold work [F&H]. |
(Aus.) a dredgerman.
![]() | Freeman’s Jrnl (Sydney) 6 Nov. 11/4: It appears that [...] the latter went into his house, and returning with a pistol, levelled it at the unfortunate man’s head and blew away the whole of his lower jaw and tongue. | |
![]() | Express and Teleg. (Adelaide) 26 Jun. 2/7: A mud puncher might think different, but what can he know about it? | |
![]() | Port Augusta Dispatch (SA) 2 Sept. 4/7: [H]e would begin to find himself quite at home with a mud puncher over a glass of Dog’a Nose, ‘so early in the morning’. | |
![]() | South Bourke & Mornington Jrnl (Richmond, Vic.) 17 Dec. 2/7: People about were angry at the wild joke, but the mud-puncher’s ‘pal’ was overjoyed at the newly-discovered talent in his mate. | |
![]() | Advertiser (Adelaide) 13 May 4/8: Laborers raised the silt and shovelled it up from the barges on to a stage erected half-way up the wharfside, and again threw it up on the wharf. There the ‘mud punchers’’ job ended, and it was loaded by the draymen. | |
![]() | Recorder (Port Pirie, SA) 30 Mar. 3/3: Mr Smith drifted in reverie back to days when as a boy he carried hot meals to a gang of ‘M.Ps,’ (‘Mud Punchers’) engaged in shovelling silt from the river bed on to barges. |
a member of parliament.
![]() | Memoirs of a ‘Sky Pilot’ 254: The plainly modern ‘monkey on a gridiron’ for cyclist, [...] and ‘mud-pusher’ for M.P. |
a pair of boots.
![]() | Flash Mirror 7: [A] light-coloured neck scrag, gold chin prop, turnip and bunch of onions, pinched-in pin covers and Wellington mud-rakers . |
see separate entries.
see mud hook n. (2)
(US black) second-rate, impoverished.
![]() | Howard Street 14: Long months of mud-stomping prostitution caused her to hesitate. |
In phrases
to defecate loudly.
![]() | Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: blow mud v. To noisily expel a loose stool; crop spray (qv). |
(US black) to let down, to disappoint.
![]() | Walls Of Jericho 144: Jivin’ a dickty gal now [...] Bringin’ me mud. [Ibid.] 297: Bring Mud To fall below expectations, disappoint. He who escorts a homely sheba to a dickty shout brings mud. |
(US) to move very fast.
![]() | Down in the Holler 238: One of our neighbors said to his small son, ‘You just cut mud for home, afore I take a hickory to you!’. |
see separate entries.
extremely poor.
![]() | Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 62: Farm’s as poor as mud. |
(Aus.) unsatisfactory.
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Apr. 4/7: I just bin t’ see this ’ere pitcher o’ Tom Roberts’s. Up t’ mud. In my opinion anyow. | |
![]() | Sun. Times (Perth, Aus.) 25 Feb. 14/1: We wanted to know how they’d characterise anyone they didn’t like. ‘Oh, we’d say he’s up to mud,’ they returned easily. | |
![]() | 🌐 Got into quarters and found I was detailed for Ration carrying. Game up to mud. [...] 17 Feb. Went and saw the Doctor. He reckons I’ve nothing much wrong with me. [..] His opinion up to mud. [add def.]. | 13 Feb. diary|
![]() | Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. | |
![]() | North. Times (Carnarvon, WA) 24 Sept. 2/6: Up to Mud: Worthless, uselsss, no good. | |
![]() | Aussie Eng. (1966) 60: Anything ‘up to mud’ is ‘not up to much’. |
In exclamations
see separate entry.